The recent presidential elections in Ukraine represent
the possibility for a significant change of course in the government’s
handling of the country’s nascent religious crisis. At the end of 2018,
fears of a potentially-major escalation in the country’s internal
conflict began to swirl around news of a schism between the Russian
Orthodox Church and Constantinople over the latter’s plans to create an
independent Ukrainian church. With the news of schism came statements
made by former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko in which he
announced his intention to seize major religious sites belonging to the
Russian Orthodox Church’s jurisdiction in Ukraine. In particular, his
statements that Kiev’s famous Pechersk Lavra would eventually be taken
as part of the new church provoked a strong response from Vladimir
Putin, who insisted that Russia would defend the religious freedoms of
Russian Orthodox believers from persecution and foreign meddling. A
scenario in which the Ukrainian government attempted to seize a site
like the Pechersk Lavra, the seat of the Russian Orthodox Church within
Ukraine and home to thousands of monks loyal to Kirill, the Moscow
Patriarchate, would represent a serious escalation that had the
potential to spiral into a much larger and more dangerous conflict.
The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, traditionally
understood as the “first among equals,” announced his intention to grant
a tomos, an official letter, creating an autocephalous
Ukrainian Orthodox church, centered in Kiev. In response, the Moscow
Patriarchate, which has held jurisdiction over the canonical Ukrainian
church since the seventeenth century, severed communion with
Constantinople, provoking a rare schism. In December 2018, the two
noncanonical Orthodox churches in Ukraine voted to merge into a single
entity, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), which was officially
recognized by Constantinople in January. It remains unrecognized by the
rest of the patriarchates of the Orthodox Church.
Since the creation in December of the OCU, attention has been
refocused on several alarming developments that threaten a broad
escalation of Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Though the Moscow Patriarchate
counts in its flock less than a fifth of the country’s Orthodox
believers, it controls almost twice as many parishes as the new Orthodox
Church of Ukraine and retains control over the country’s most treasured
religious sites. The most prized of these is the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, a
monastery complex which dates to the eleventh century and is considered
the most holy site in East Slavic Orthodoxy. The Lavra is also the
headquarters of the Russian Orthodox Church and home to ten thousand
monks of the Moscow Patriarchate. Repeated statements made by Poroshenko
and leaders of the Ukrainian church that sites belonging to the Moscow
Patriarchate would be seized provoked fears that the war in the Donbass
could escalate into a religious war fought in the heart of the country.
When asked if there were plans to seize the Lavra, Poroshenko responded
that “There is a time for everything.” Vladimir Putin responded that
Russia would protect the human rights of the Orthodox faithful in
Ukraine, calling the entire controversy a Western-led plot to “separate to the peoples of Russia and Ukraine.”
The issue goes much deeper than recent history, concerning
fundamental questions of the national identity of Russians and
Ukrainians alike. At stake in the question of church independence is a
claim on the legacy of the old civilization of Kievan Rus. Russian and
Ukrainian historiography has diverged significantly on this question. To
Russians, Moscow is the successor of the old patrimony of Kiev, which
gradually shifted eastward as a result of the devastation of the
Mongols. The destruction of Kiev by Batu Khan in 1240 is the primary
cause for the division of the territory held by the princes of Rus and
their evolution into the distinct modern ethnic groups of Russians,
Belarussians, and Ukrainians.
Ukrainians, whose history has been shaped by centuries of Polish
rule, developed a sense of nationhood centered around Kiev. The
Muscovites similarly lay claim to Kiev as the birthplace of their
civilization. Moscow’s acquisition of the church centered in Kiev in the
late seventeenth century is understood by Russian historians as a
reunion of the lands of Kievan Rus. For Ukrainian nationalists in the
intellectual milieu of the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, Moscow was yet another foreign oppressor carving up the
Ukrainian heartland.
After the fall of communism, when only the church of the Moscow
Patriarchate was permitted, nationally-minded Ukrainians identified with
two non-canonical Orthodox churches, neither of which was recognized by
any other patriarchates. Each church laid a claim to be the rightful
continuation of the church of Kievan Rus.
Schism, though rare, has been a part of the creation of new
national churches, particularly during the liberation of Southern Europe
and the Balkans from Ottoman rule. In Ukraine’s case, there was very
little expression of support for clerical independence from Moscow until
the events of Maidan in 2014. Soon after, top Ukrainian political
strategists presented a plan for achieving political, economic, and
cultural independence from Russian influence. Among their first targets
was the Russian Orthodox Church, which they saw as an arm of the
Kremlin’s soft power in Ukraine. Autocephaly was soon adopted by the
Ukrainian Rada in 2016, when an appeal was made to Constantinople for
the creation of a new church. In 2018, following a second appeal,
embattled president Petro Poroshenko adopted autocephaly as a cause
célèbre, undertaking a prolonged and costly effort requiring heavy
investment of his political, personal, and financial capital. Poll
numbers consistently demonstrated that autocephaly was a winning
political issue. Only 15-20 percent of Ukrainians, depending on the
polls, identify themselves with the canonical Russian Church. A
plurality claimed affiliation with the two noncanonical churches, but a
decisive majority indicated support for the project. Poroshenko became
the face of the project, even going so far as to incorporate it into the
slogan for his re-election campaign: Army, Language, Faith. At a rally
marking the church unification council in December, Poroshenko promised
his supporters a church “without Putin . . . without Kirill . . . A
church that doesn’t pray for the Russian state and the Russian army.”
Unfortunately for Poroshenko, Ukrainian voters were concerned with
broader exigencies. The first issue for voters was the intractable
conflict in the Donbass region, which has resulted in tens of thousands
of casualties and a massive exodus of people to Ukraine’s west and to
Poland. Second on the list, according to polls, was the lagging economy.
Ukraine posts some of the most consistently poor figures in Europe for
growth, GDP per capita, and individual wealth. Public trust in the state
is low and corruption is endemic. Moreover, the average Ukrainian,
despite professing religion as a key component of Ukrainian identity, is
in practice not very religious—one researcher estimated
that not more than 1-2 percent of the population attends church on a
weekly basis, despite over 70 percent of the population identifying
themselves as Orthodox. This phenomenon is mirrored in Russia. Though
Orthodoxy made great gains in reasserting itself as a cultural
institution, modernity and more than seven decades of state atheism have
had a significant impact on religiosity.
Poroshenko’s campaign was built on patriotic sentiment that had
reached its apogee in 2014: prioritizing the Ukrainian language,
building up the country’s military potential, and weakening institutions
seen as arms of the Kremlin’s influence. The surge of patriotism has
long since been tempered by widespread disappointment in the lack of
progress Poroshenko’s government has made on the issues of greatest
importance to voters. Moreover, perception of corruption remains as high
as ever, which is why Poroshenko’s overtures to national identity and
patriotism fell flat when contrasted with the campaign of his opponent,
Volodymyr Zelensky.
Zelensky is an outsider in many respects. He is a comedian and
television actor known for playing a man who inadvertently becomes
Ukraine’s president after harnessing public frustration with a corrupt
and inefficient system. Zelensky’s campaign incorporated patriotic
sentiments, including prioritizing the Ukrainian language and expressing
support for the tomos of autocephaly, but he treated Ukrainian nationalism with a playful irreverence that, notwithstanding several controversies,
resonated with voters. His campaign was remarkably scant on policy,
powered instead by his personal charisma and his broad anti-corruption
message. Born into a Jewish family, Zelensky is also an outsider on the
church question. He is laconic about his own religious beliefs and
generally restricts religious expression to broad statements, famously
responding to a Facebook comment drawing attention to his absence at Easter services by saying “Don’t look for me in Church, look for God.”
Though vague, Zelensky’s overarching message has been one of national
unity. Candidate Zelensky expressed his support for the creation of the
Orthodox Church of Ukraine and will be tasked with overseeing the rest
of its implementation. Since winning the election he has met with
representatives of Ukraine’s various confessions. The Moscow
Patriarchate has received his victory positively. One representative of
the church expressed
the opinion that Zelensky would reduce “persecution” of Russian
Orthodox faithful in Ukraine. Though scant on details, Zelensky’s
outsider status seems to bode well for the way he will address the
religious divide in a very divided country. He is not personally
invested in the project in the way Petro Poroshenko was and thus it
seems highly unlikely that he will pursue an aggressive policy against
the Moscow Church. But he will still inherit the situation left by
Poroshenko, which includes a number of legal issues with significant
implications for foreign and domestic policy.
Transferring parishes from the Moscow Patriarchate to the
Orthodox Church of Ukraine is the most immediate problem. An ambiguous
law passed in January 2018 permits the transfer of parishes from the
Moscow Patriarchate to the new Kievan Patriarchate with a simple
majority vote. The exact procedures are murky, as is any definition of
what constitutes a legitimate majority. In response to allegations of
state interference in parish transfers, the Moscow Patriarchate has
reportedly dispatched teams of priests, accompanied by lawyers, to some
of the parishes in question. Of about twelve thousand parishes under the
jurisdiction of Moscow, about 320, or 2.5 percent, are reported to have changed allegiance since the creation of the OCU, though this figure is contested by the Moscow Patriarchate.
Another controversy centers around a law, ratified by the
Ukrainian Rada but since suspended by the country’s supreme court,
pending an appeal, that requires the canonical church (known officially
as the Ukrainian Orthodox Church—Moscow Patriarchate) to rename itself
to the Russian Orthodox Church of Ukraine. The intent of the law is
quite clear: by forcing the church to re-register itself as the
“Russian” Orthodox Church of Ukraine, the Ukrainian government hopes to
draw parishioners, many of whom simply attend church without considering
its jurisdiction, away from something “Russian” and towards something
“Ukrainian.” Prime ministers in the Ukrainian Rada have vowed file an
appeal to overturn suspension of the law. Irrespective of the outcome of
the court case, it is unclear how the law would be enforced on the
local level, which is where the competition for church influence will be
most important.
Zelensky has inherited an unenviable situation domestically and
internationally. It remains to be seen whether he will be able to
overcome the calcified bureaucracy and endemic corruption that plagues
Ukraine’s political system. But when it comes to the most divisive
issues facing the country, his status as an outsider could become an
advantage. Zelensky has embraced patriotic causes in his campaign,
including his support for an independent Ukrainian Church. But he also
campaigned on a civic-minded message of unity, making overtures to an
eventual peace settlement in the Donbass and maintain good relations
with each of Ukraine’s religious denominations. Exactly how successful
the Volodymyr Zelensky presidency will be is anyone’s guess, but he is
currently Ukraine’s best chance for reducing church tension, promoting
inter-confessional dialogue, and limiting the spread of a religious
dimension within an already bitter internal conflict.
Daniel Hanson is a recent graduate of Georgetown University's
Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies program. He is currently
the Russia research intern at the Center for the National Interest.